After setbacks, athletes have to learn from their mistakes and try again.
That is exactly what the Blue Devil men will have to do after a disappointing showing at the Roy Griak Invitational this past Saturday.
Due to injuries and illness, the team was missing four of its top runners as it headed into the meet, but had high hopes despite the disadvantage. However, after an overall tenth-place finish, the team is looking back on the meet as a learning experience rather than a success.
The strength of the field worked against the Blue Devils as the race began much more quickly than it had in previous years. This increased competition was evidenced by the new course record set by Arizona freshman Lawi Lelang, who won the race with a time of 23:16. For the young Duke team, the injuries and lack of experience, combined with the increased pace and level of competition, led to some less-than-satisfactory results. It also did not help that Stephen Clark hurt his back in the middle of the race, and sophomore Phil Fairleigh failed to finish.
“We thought we could go into it with a pretty green squad and still do pretty well,” senior Andrew Brodeur said. “But this year the race was just so much more competitive and so much faster than last year that we couldn’t deal with it. We had a lot of stuff not really go our way at the same time too…. It just wasn’t our day.”
Of course, the meet was not without its high points. Brodeur crossed the finish line first for the Duke men in his first race of the season, and was followed by freshman Morgan Pearson who broke 25 minutes to take the number two spot for the team. Sophomore Brian Atkinson also ran a stellar race, clocking a lifetime best of 25:03 as he came in third for the Blue Devils. Unfortunately for Duke, its success in the meet was restricted to these three runners, and the athletes walked away from the course disappointed.
“It’s a race result and we have to respect what happened,” head coach Norm Ogilvie said. “At the end of the day the excuses don’t matter…. We didn’t do as well as we would have liked. We think we’re better than we showed today.”
Now the team is focused on making sure that these results are not repeated. But in spite of the determined attitude displayed by Ogilvie and his runners, this loss could still set the team back later in the season.
The Invitational represented a chance for the team to gain points toward qualifying for nationals, and show that it could remain competitive with the three nationally-ranked teams in the event. The Duke men had hoped to stay as close to these teams as possible in hopes of accumulating points, but after Saturday’s results, will have to focus on working harder in upcoming meets.
“[This race] certainly makes the road a little bit tougher,” Brodeur said, “But…at the same time it strengthens our resolve. We’re going to look back on this race and say, ‘This is what we shouldn’t have done, here’s what we’re going to do better in the future.’ It’s a pretty big learning experience…but I think we’re going to be able to come back pretty hard.”
The top Duke men will have three weeks to make this happen before they race again in Virginia, and have no intentions of letting their disappointment hold them back. And according to Ogilvie, this result does not take away from the team’s potential success.
“We can be better and we will be better,” Ogilvie said.
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